I made it through my last day of work today. Turned out to be much easier than I expected, despite getting very little sleep. It didn’t feel like my last day because I’ll be going in again on Friday. I had lunch with one group of friends, coffee with another and managed to wrap up most of the work loose ends. I have a long gap between my exit interview and the party on Friday so I emailed a few people to see if they wanted to do coffee. I now have nearly a full 8 hour day filled with coffee and lunch dates. Not sure how that’s going to go but hopefully it will be more nostalgia-sad than grief sad. And if it’s that easy to find coffee/lunch dates, maybe I can do something similar in future and get some social time in every month or two with my old work friends.

I feel relieved to be done. I still have lots of other stuff to take care of but having that I-should-be-working sensation out of my head should make all of that easier.

I went straight from work to my first bi-weekly support group. Interestingly, this one was all women. Apparently that’s typical. I guess guys aren’t big on seeking help. The boy and I tried a cancer support group early on but it never really clicked. We didn’t have enough in common with the rest of the group. This group was the opposite. We have everything in common. I keep hearing that people grieve in different ways but I’m beginning to think we all do it the same way. We are all mentally foggy and clumsy. We go through our emotions in waves. We get impatient and frustrated easily. We have trouble sleeping. Everything seems harder than it should be. And we are all doing the best we can. The fact that we were there probably selects for that last one. I expect I will make new friendships there – the kind of friendships I need right now. I will definitely be going back.

I have a few counsellor references from the boy’s doc now. I’ll pursue that path too, I think. It’s funny, normally I would run away from the idea of dumping on strangers and welcoming sympathy. There’s something about the nature of this loss that changes that instinct. I want people – maybe not all people, but some people – to understand what I am going through and how awful it is that the boy isn’t here any more. I want the world to recognize what an earth-shattering disaster this is.

It’s been a very long day. I’m exhausted. Hopefully I’ll get some sleep tonight.